Coil maker opens plant in Dayton, Tenn., plans to add 70 jobs

The Goodman Manufacturing plant, shown here in 2015, once employed 640 workers before it shut down in 2016. Coil Design Corp., is moving into the vacant plant and plans to employ 70 workers.

Photo by
Staff File Photo
/Times Free Press.

This story was updated May 14, 2018, at 10:34 p.m. with more information.

Coil Design Corp., is moving its headquarters from New Jersey to Tennessee and acquiring the former Goodman Manufacturing plant in Dayton, Tenn., to begin its production of heating and cooling coils for the HVAC and refrigeration industries and aftermarket.

The company is spending $3.4 million to equip the renovated plant in Dayton and said Monday it will hire 70 workers over the next two years to begin manufacturing its coils. Previously, Coil Design has used third party production to make its equipment.

Although Coil's planned staffing is only a fraction of the 705 employees who once worked in the Goodman air conditioning plant, officials noted that Goodman began with only 50 employees two decades ago and gradually built the plant into one of Rhea County's biggest employers before new owners relocated production to Texas in 2016.

"Coil Design Corporation will be the supplier of choice for coils in the heating, cooling, refrigeration and aftermarket industries," Coil Design Corporation CEO Paul Guariglia said in a statement Monday announcing the start of production in Dayton in the next month 0r s0. "We have a skilled staff of employees that manufactured coils at this very site for 21 years under its previous ownership. The presence of an existing, highly trained labor force will allow us to grow at an accelerated pace while maintaining the highest level of quality."

Coil will lease the 188,000-square-foot plant from an ownership group that recently acquired the facility from Goodman Manufacturing, a subsidiary of Daikin. Guariglia said "Tennessee is a great place to operate a business and Dayton is a location that met all of our needs."

The city and county will exempt Coil from property taxes for 10 years under a payment-in-lieu-of-tax agreement and the state and Tennessee Valley Authority will also provide assistance for the move.

"For decades, Dayton has had a rich manufacturing legacy, especially in skilled trades that supply the HVAC industry," said Bob Rolfe, commissioner for the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development. "By establishing its headquarters and production in Dayton, Coil Design Corporation will play a crucial role in boosting the local economy."

Rhea county has had one of the highest unemployment rates of any of Tennessee's 95 counties over the past couple of years. In December 2016, Goodman Manufacturing closed the Dayton plant and moved the production to Texas. In the same year, Fujifilm closed its 84-employee plant in Dayton and TVA also completed work the same year of the Watts Bar Nuclear Plant near Spring City, where thousands of workers had been employed during the plant's construction.

But last year, Rhea County landed a $360 million tire manufacturing plant expected to hire 400 workers by 2020. Nokian Tyres, a Finnish tire maker, will produce passenger, SUV and light-truck tires in Dayton to supply the U.S. market.

J.M. Huber Corp. has also reopened its plant in Etowah with 140 employees and La-Z-Boy is opening its research and development center in Dayton with 125 more employees this month.

"We're definitely on an upswing with 600 construction workers about to show up on on the Nokian site and new job additions at Huber, La-Z-Boy nd now Coil Design," said Dennis Tumlin, executive director of Rhea County Economic and Community Development. "It's going gangbusters right now."